Too many twits make a what? Of course David Cameron should be on Twitter

Remember the last time David Cameron was asked about Twitter? “Too many twits might make a —-”, was his rakish response. Well, yesterday Tim Montgomerie tried again. “David, can I encourage you again to consider joining Twitter?”, he asked at the Tory leader’s press conference, pointing out that Downing Street and Mrs Sarah Brown have over a million followers each. “You could easily be communicating to tens of thousands of people, incredibly quickly, with 140 character messages. Will you reconsider?”

Cameron was careful to avoid any “verbal slip-ups” on this occasion, but he did seem stumped by the question. Like many of his generation, he views Twitter something a bit silly – far too trivial for a politician who is focused on those tough decisions ahead. He finished unconvincingly: “Every time you add to this great panoply of communication, you have to think very carefully about whether you’re going to keep it up, whether you’re going to fully think through everything you’re going to say, before you say it.”

Now that’s not the David Cameron most of us know. Worried about communication and whether he’ll “fully think” through everything he’s going to say? Whatever happened to the confident PR man? It's got nothing to do with the length of tweets – “we can't go on like this”, for instance, is only 24 characters.

Tim Montgomerie is right: it's time Cameron started using Twitter. A Tweetminster report yesterday confirmed not only that Labour has more than three times the number of followers than the Tories on Twitter (in terms of MP, PPC and official party accounts). It also revealed that, “senior party members can play a critical role in connecting with members of the public: Nick Clegg and Eric Pickles stand out in all tables well above their party’s average statistics.”